Hello loved ones! In this blog I have a lot to say considering I've been a huge bum and not updated in quite some time. So, let's begin.
Last Shabbat (as in a week from yesterday) I went to a Shabbaton at Kibbutz Chanaton (yes I know that rhymes). The Shabbaton was organized in part by a girl on Nativ and there were HebrewU students, Yeshiva students, and Nativers there. I went with my friends Michelle and Misha. On the way up to the Kibbutz, we stopped for lunch in the Druze village. I'd been there once before on pilgrimage but it was really nice to see it again. We perused the shops and I bought some scarves. It was quite lovely.
Once on the Kibbutz, we had some of the usual Shabbaton activities - meals, icebreakers, and services. Kibbutz Chanaton is in the North, and it is really gorgeous up there. The Kibbutz itself is really small, with only about 6 families, as it is the only Masorti Conservative Kibbutz currently in Israel. Mostly the Kibbutz hosts visiting groups like ours, but in order to attract more families to the Kibbutz they are privitizing everything and abandoning the socialist way of life, as are many Kibbutzim in Israel today.
Michelle and Misha and I mostly kept to ourselves all weekend - we had a very relaxing time sleeping, reading, and talking. Sometimes it's nice to get away from base just to do nothing in a different setting. All in all it was a great weekend, exactly what I needed.
Sunday morning was a volunteer carnival for a local school that one of the Nativers had organized with a family friend of his who works for a non-profit here in Jerusalem. We spent the morning playing with kids in a neighborhood called Talpiyot, where many of the families are poor immigrants. It was really a lot of fun, and I've really missed being around kids so I had an especially good time.
Last week was also midterms (which is partly why I wasn't able to write here last week). Everyone was pretty frazzled running around trying to study for exams and keep up with all the regular school work - it was the first time I actually felt like I was in real college. I had my Church Midterm last Monday (which I got back already - my first college A!), and my paper for Holocaust class due Wednesday. This week continues Midterms, with my Mysticism paper due Wednesday and my Hebrew test in two parts on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully all of those will go well.
So while I was home writing my Holocaust paper last Monday night, Nativ girls' football had their first win of the season! And in fact, since Nativ didn't win a single girls' football game last year, it was actually Nativ's first win ever, which was really exciting, and I'm very sorry I missed it - although glad I didn't have to worry about working on my paper late Tuesday night.
To celebrate the completion of half of my midterms, I of course played in beer pong on Wednesday night (after sushi Wednesday dinner - after my full day of school on Wednesday I really need my sushi). In ANOTHER spectacular underdog win, Kesha and I (Becky was home writing her Holocaust paper) WON OUR FIRST BEERPONG GAME. It was all glory and rainbows and sunshine, with everyone cheering for us and the commissioner of the league yelling 'those are my girls! those are my girls!,' while the boys we beat had to hang their heads in shame. Overall it was a spectacular win as we only had 3 cups left, and then I made one shot, and then Kesha made it in the same cup, which means that the boys had to drink all 3 cups (when both partners make it in the same cup it counts for three cups) and we won the game. No matter how great the feeling of winning was, the best part is still the fact that now my father, Mr. Fraternity Present Man, no longer has to hide inside the house in shame of his eldest child.
Thanksgiving on Thursday was a spectacular event. The entire dining room was decorated in orange with confetti on the tables (just like home) and drawings of turkeys on the walls. There were over 250 people there, as all the past Nativers who now live in Israel are invited to come for Thanksgiving dinner with their families - and many of them do. Before dinner we all gathered to watch the new Nativ promo video (which was amazing) and to hear the Nativ acapella group perform (which was even more amazing). When we walked into dinner, I got the biggest surprise of all. Nativ had e-mailed home and arranged that every single Nativer would get a packet of letters from home, and then when all the e-mails came back our staff sat there and individually copied and pasted each e-mail into a word document and then printed them all out and organized them for us. If there was any doubt in my mind that Nativ was the best Israel program out there, it totally disappeared after this. It was just so nice and so unexpected to have this connection to home on Thanksgiving, even if it did make me cry a little (okay, a lot). Thank you SO much to all of you who wrote to me - it made my Thanksgiving really really wonderful.
After dinner, all the Bogrei Nativers (that's what we call people who went on Nativ in past years - don't ask me why) left, and all the current Nativers gathered in the auditorium. There we watched a very funny video of all of us and life on Nativ that the Thanksgiving Committee put together. Then our staff listed all the reasons why they're thankful to be our staff, which was really really sweet. After all of this, there was a marathon of all the Thanksgiving Friends episodes; I couldn't have asked for better programming. All in all, although it was sad to not be home, it was a really great Thanksgiving.
This weekend I decided that I wanted to take advantage of being able to travel from Jerusalem up north before we go down south for second semester. One of my favorite places that we visited on pilgrimage was a town in the north called Tzfat, known for it's candle factory and as a center for Jewish mysticism. So I asked my friend David Bocarsly (who's always up for anything), and we formed a group to go to Tzfat. It ended up being me, David Bocarsly, David Beizer, and my friends Sara and Emily (not the same Emily I'm going away with over winter break).
I made the reservations for us at the youth hostel, so Friday morning we set off bright and early, leaving at 6 AM to catch a 7 AM bus. Only problem was, somehow I had gotten the wrong bus times (I swear the lady from the bus station that I called told me that there was a 7 AM bus to Tzfat), so the first bus wasn't until 9. After sleeping in the bus station like hobos for an hour and a half, we walked across the street to the bus stop and waited for our bus. And waited, and waited. When the bus finally rolled up at 9:30, we were about 10 minutes away from abandoning the trip all together.
We got on the crowded bus, and a mere three and a half hours later we arrived in Tzfat. Hurray! We checked into our youth hostel, which was pretty cute. It was dorm style rooms, so the guys and girls were split up, the guys having two other roommates and the three of us girls having one other roommate. Then we basically said goodbye to the guys for the weekend. They went out and toured around the city with someone from the youth hostel, while the three of us went snack shopping for the weekend and walked around, exploring the town for ourselves. It is a really cute and beautiful place, with gorgeous views of mountains and other scenery.
The hostel we stayed at is a Chabad (orthodox) run organization, and so they set us up for Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch. After Friday night services (in which the men and women were separated, so we didn't see the boys), we went to dinner (in which the girls and guys had been split up when assigned a host home). Dinner for the three girls on Friday night was interesting, to say the least. We were in an orthodox home where there were at least 13 people, all related, and it was very difficult to tell who was married to whom and who each child belonged to. It was about ten minutes after entering the home that we were even acknowledged (besides the young boy who pointed to the couch and commanded that we "sit down," which we obeyed), and then it was only by the women. The men (with the exception of the father, who explained this week's Torah portion to us in English before going back to speaking only Hebrew) didn't acknowledge us all night, except for the one man who snapped at Emily to get her attention and then pointed to the Coke, signaling that she should pass the bottle. Sara and I were both asked to button up our cardigans, although I can assure you my top was far less low-cut than usual. The mother was very nice to us, to be fair, but it was clear that in the hierarchy of the family her opinion towards us mattered very little. We soon decided it was best to just remain engaged in our own conversation and enjoy the food.
The next day we slept late (we really needed it after midterms week) and then got up, warily, to go to lunch. After about forty minutes of wandering around and asking several people for directions, we finally got to where we were supposed to be. This family was great - a mother and father and about seven or eight children, some of whom did not belong to the parents. The food and apartment were modest, but the children were sweet and adorable and the parents made us feel extremely welcome - the mother even sent us home with leftover desserts and walked us all the way back to our hostel, which was totally unnecessary.
We spent most of the rest of the afternoon resting and laying around, and then Saturday night after Shabbat we all made our way back to Jerusalem. Overall it was a really wonderful weekend and I'm so glad I took advantage of the opportunity to do some traveling.
Pictures of the carnival, Thanksgiving, and Tzfat can be found in my new google pictures album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kaleibowitz/ThanksgivingAndTzfat02#
Hope you all had great holiday weekends, talk to you again soon!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Yerucham!
Hello!
Last Shabbat was closed, meaning we all stayed with our groups. My group went to Yerucham - the place where I'll be living and volunteering second semester. Now it should be noted here that if I ever tell anyone who knows of the town that I'll be living there, the general reaction is "Why would you ever want to do that?"
The town itself is small, with only one main road with all the shops, grocery store, and restaurants. The town has one school, one grocery store, one falafel stand, etc etc. We took a walking tour of Yerucham that lasted about 15 minutes, and at the edge of the town you can see miles and miles of the Negev desert, because there's absolutely nothing else around.
On the walking tour, our guide, a resident of Yerucham, told us all how it was a great place to live because there was a real sense of community - one time at the grocery store he was short 200 shekels, and a man who he had barely ever spoken to before gave him his credit card to finish his shopping. He also told us how Yerucham got started. Apparently, no one comes to Yerucham voluntarily. Years ago, when the town was getting started, the Israeli government wanted people to move there to help populate the Negev. However, when immigrants came to Israel they generally wanted to live in the big cities - and they definitely didn't want to live in the middle of the desert without so much as a grocery store. So in order to get people to move there, the Israeli government would fill buses with new immigrants to take them to their destinations. the bus would drive to Yerucham, stop and say "Jerusalem." Then all the immigrants for Jerusalem would get off. The bus would drive around the desert for an hour or so, stop again in Yerucham, and say "Tel Aviv," and all the immigrants for Tel Aviv would get off. It did this for every major city in Israel. By the time the immigrants realized where they were, they had already bought apartments, and many were forced to stay. There are many stories of people accidentally and inadvertently ending up in Yerucham, and not many of people who really wanted to move there.
The good news is that we will definitely be able to make a difference in Yerucham. As one speaker eloquently put it "all the successful Yeruchamites move away to try and make it outside of Yerucham, leaving their retarded brothers." Many of the people living in Yerucham are unable to care for themselves in one way or another, because many of those who can choose to move away.
Believe it or not, I had a great weekend in Yerucham. I think that for 4 months, I really don't need more than one grocery store or falafel place, and the town has a library, a gym, a rec center, and several beautiful parks. I had a great time just being with my group; we all get along really well. I think that Yerucham will be an interesting experience and I'm sure that as a group we'll find ways to keep ourselves entertained. All in all, I can't wait!
Last Shabbat was closed, meaning we all stayed with our groups. My group went to Yerucham - the place where I'll be living and volunteering second semester. Now it should be noted here that if I ever tell anyone who knows of the town that I'll be living there, the general reaction is "Why would you ever want to do that?"
The town itself is small, with only one main road with all the shops, grocery store, and restaurants. The town has one school, one grocery store, one falafel stand, etc etc. We took a walking tour of Yerucham that lasted about 15 minutes, and at the edge of the town you can see miles and miles of the Negev desert, because there's absolutely nothing else around.
On the walking tour, our guide, a resident of Yerucham, told us all how it was a great place to live because there was a real sense of community - one time at the grocery store he was short 200 shekels, and a man who he had barely ever spoken to before gave him his credit card to finish his shopping. He also told us how Yerucham got started. Apparently, no one comes to Yerucham voluntarily. Years ago, when the town was getting started, the Israeli government wanted people to move there to help populate the Negev. However, when immigrants came to Israel they generally wanted to live in the big cities - and they definitely didn't want to live in the middle of the desert without so much as a grocery store. So in order to get people to move there, the Israeli government would fill buses with new immigrants to take them to their destinations. the bus would drive to Yerucham, stop and say "Jerusalem." Then all the immigrants for Jerusalem would get off. The bus would drive around the desert for an hour or so, stop again in Yerucham, and say "Tel Aviv," and all the immigrants for Tel Aviv would get off. It did this for every major city in Israel. By the time the immigrants realized where they were, they had already bought apartments, and many were forced to stay. There are many stories of people accidentally and inadvertently ending up in Yerucham, and not many of people who really wanted to move there.
The good news is that we will definitely be able to make a difference in Yerucham. As one speaker eloquently put it "all the successful Yeruchamites move away to try and make it outside of Yerucham, leaving their retarded brothers." Many of the people living in Yerucham are unable to care for themselves in one way or another, because many of those who can choose to move away.
Believe it or not, I had a great weekend in Yerucham. I think that for 4 months, I really don't need more than one grocery store or falafel place, and the town has a library, a gym, a rec center, and several beautiful parks. I had a great time just being with my group; we all get along really well. I think that Yerucham will be an interesting experience and I'm sure that as a group we'll find ways to keep ourselves entertained. All in all, I can't wait!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Football and Shabbat in Rehovot
Hello again! It's been a while since I've written (oops), but now that I'm back at HebrewU full time it's very easy to get sucked into the routine. Get up, go to class (and I always get up with just enough time to get to class...whether my class starts at 8:30 or 2:30), come home, eat, go to activity, go out, go to sleep, do it all over again. I love to be busy but it doesn't leave a lot of down time.
Last Monday we had a football scrimmage, which we lost, but to be fair we played against girls who had played on the Israeli national flag football team - so they were really good. This Monday, we had our first game, which we also lost, to seminary girls - not such an honorable loss. It's very hard when our team has 38 girls (Nativ doesn't want to split us up because they don't want us to play against each other) and every other team only has about 10. In trying to get everyone, regardless of skill level, a fair amount of playing time, we sometimes end up sacrificing our chances of winning. But we do have fun and we ALWAYS have the loudest cheering section =).
This weekend my friend Kesha and I went with Keren to visit her family in Rehovot. As usual, it was a lot of fun. We were fed well and allowed to nap, and Friday night we stayed with Keren's younger cousin and his wife. At about 12:30 we left and went to a club, and returned home at about 5:30. It was a lot of fun, and really cool to experience a real Israeli club (the clubs we have near us in Jerusalem are located in a place that Nativ affectionately refers to as 'the armpit' - needless to say it's not the nicest place to hang out).
Saturday we went back to Keren's aunts house and had a wonderful lunch with all her cousins, including all 6 of her little boy cousins. That house is never quiet when they're all there, that's for sure.
On Saturday night in Tel Aviv there was a memorial concert for Yitzhak Rabin (one of Israel's best prime ministers who was assasinated 13 years ago), so we met up with the rest of Nativ there. It was amazing to see all these Israelis (and also quite a few Americans) who came out to support the memory of Rabin and all that he stood for.
I just finished reading my book for book club, called Someone To Run With. It was AMAZING and I highly recommend it. Also it was really interesting to read a book by an Israeli author, because a lot of it took place in the park across the street from my dorm building (which is where lots of Nativers and hang out) and there was even a time when the book mentioned Agron street, which was the street that I live on. I'm really excited for our discussion on Sunday night.
Finally, the most exciting news of the week by far, is that yesterday I bought my plane tickets for winter break. My friends Carmie (who's from Colorado) and Emily (who's from Texas) and I decided we wanted to travel together over winter break. I'm really excited about the group of the three of us, because I really like these girls and we click really well together. We only have a 13ish day vacation, so we won't get a chance to do everything we would have liked to, but as of now, our itinerary is this: 3 days and 3 nights in Rome, 2 days and 1 night in Sienna, 2 days 2 nights in Florence, 1 day and 1 night in Milan, 4 days and 4 nights in Paris, and 1 day and 1 night in Germany with Emily's cousins, who will take us back to the airport in Frankfurt. I'm VERY excited and it should be a wonderful trip!
That's all for now, thanks for reading!
Last Monday we had a football scrimmage, which we lost, but to be fair we played against girls who had played on the Israeli national flag football team - so they were really good. This Monday, we had our first game, which we also lost, to seminary girls - not such an honorable loss. It's very hard when our team has 38 girls (Nativ doesn't want to split us up because they don't want us to play against each other) and every other team only has about 10. In trying to get everyone, regardless of skill level, a fair amount of playing time, we sometimes end up sacrificing our chances of winning. But we do have fun and we ALWAYS have the loudest cheering section =).
This weekend my friend Kesha and I went with Keren to visit her family in Rehovot. As usual, it was a lot of fun. We were fed well and allowed to nap, and Friday night we stayed with Keren's younger cousin and his wife. At about 12:30 we left and went to a club, and returned home at about 5:30. It was a lot of fun, and really cool to experience a real Israeli club (the clubs we have near us in Jerusalem are located in a place that Nativ affectionately refers to as 'the armpit' - needless to say it's not the nicest place to hang out).
Saturday we went back to Keren's aunts house and had a wonderful lunch with all her cousins, including all 6 of her little boy cousins. That house is never quiet when they're all there, that's for sure.
On Saturday night in Tel Aviv there was a memorial concert for Yitzhak Rabin (one of Israel's best prime ministers who was assasinated 13 years ago), so we met up with the rest of Nativ there. It was amazing to see all these Israelis (and also quite a few Americans) who came out to support the memory of Rabin and all that he stood for.
I just finished reading my book for book club, called Someone To Run With. It was AMAZING and I highly recommend it. Also it was really interesting to read a book by an Israeli author, because a lot of it took place in the park across the street from my dorm building (which is where lots of Nativers and hang out) and there was even a time when the book mentioned Agron street, which was the street that I live on. I'm really excited for our discussion on Sunday night.
Finally, the most exciting news of the week by far, is that yesterday I bought my plane tickets for winter break. My friends Carmie (who's from Colorado) and Emily (who's from Texas) and I decided we wanted to travel together over winter break. I'm really excited about the group of the three of us, because I really like these girls and we click really well together. We only have a 13ish day vacation, so we won't get a chance to do everything we would have liked to, but as of now, our itinerary is this: 3 days and 3 nights in Rome, 2 days and 1 night in Sienna, 2 days 2 nights in Florence, 1 day and 1 night in Milan, 4 days and 4 nights in Paris, and 1 day and 1 night in Germany with Emily's cousins, who will take us back to the airport in Frankfurt. I'm VERY excited and it should be a wonderful trip!
That's all for now, thanks for reading!
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